


To Weather the Storm

by jemariel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caretaking, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Conditions, declaration of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemariel/pseuds/jemariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sherlock? Why have you scheduled yourself for a migraine next Tuesday?”</p><p>“Because I’m going to have one.”</p><p>Sherlock suffers a migraine; John helps as best he can. Cuddling, caretaking, and sleepy revelations of feelings. Written from personal experience with migraines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Weather the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> As stated in the summary, I too suffer migraines. Most of the details of Sherlock's migraine are drawn from years of personal experience. Every migraine has its own flavor, and every migraine sufferer experiences them differently I’m sure. But this is what mine are like.
> 
> Beta'd by the inimitable yttrium39, though not Brit-picked. A nod should definitely be given to BeautifulFiction’s Electric Pink Hand Grenade, which gave me the plot bunny. All my love to B. ^_^

~~~

_September 8 – Migraine._

John is examining the dry-erase calendar in the kitchen when he notices the odd entry. The calendar mostly tracks his surgery shifts and occasional reminders about Sherlock's experiments (and when John will bin them so that Sherlock can't plead ignorance). This particular entry was... a little out of the ordinary.

“Sherlock?” he calls.

“Hmmm?” comes the rumble from the sitting room.

“Why have you scheduled yourself for a migraine next Tuesday?”

“Because I'm going to have one,” Sherlock replies. He doesn't say "obviously," but he may as well have.

“Right. You... schedule that sort of thing out, do you?”

Sherlock sighs. “I know my triggers; I know the warning signs. There's a cold wet weather front moving in and my hands are tingling.” They are. His palms and fingers have been full of pins and needles for two days and even the friction of clothing was torture. “Therefore I will have a migraine next Tuesday.”

John just nods. Typical. “Do you need anything before then?”

Sherlock shrugs. “The strongest painkillers you can provide might be of some assistance,” he says.

“Well let's hope the criminal classes take a holiday.”

Sherlock grins a little at that. “They never do.”

~

When Sherlock wakes up on Tuesday morning, his vision is blurry and the weak sunlight through his window is far too bright. Right on schedule. Pain lances his right eyeball the moment he opens it. Already a 4.75 on the pain scale and he can tell it will be getting worse. This will be a bad one. He really ought to take advantage of this relative calm to take precautionary measures. But that would require moving and moving only ever made things worse.

Slowly, wobblingly, Sherlock arranges himself vertically and finds his way into pajama bottoms and a dressing gown – it’s all the clothing he can manage – and stumbles into the kitchen with his palm firmly clapped over his right eye.

The smell of fresh coffee lights little fires on the inside of his cranium and he cringes. There's a tall glass of water and a single white pill on the kitchen table. Sherlock examines the pill with his one currently functional eye, forcing it to focus. Paracetamol-codeine blend. Prescription strength. It will do. He downs it swiftly with half the water, then starts on coffee. A steady caffeine habit helps regulate the dilation of the blood vessels in his brain, so even though right now the thought of getting his nose any nearer to the overwhelming acrid smell makes him recoil, skipping coffee today would be a terrible idea.

He makes one piece of toast as an experiment and devours it with butter in four bites. Successful, then. He makes another and adds jam. Then starts rooting through the fridge, still strangely ravenous in spite of the fact that his stomach doesn't actually feel hungry. He comes up with a leftover chicken korma - which he doesn't bother to reheat - and he has wolfed down all but the dregs of rice when his stomach gives a seasick roll. He wants to go back in time and slow down. Nausea greases his tongue and the insides of his cheeks, and he has to force himself to swallow what's already in his mouth. The rice sits in his belly like a mass of worms ready to wriggle out. Sherlock just groans and tries to press the palms of his hands through his skull.

The sound of John's footsteps echoing down the stairs drives knives into Sherlock's brain through his ears. Why must he blunder so? Hasn't Mrs Hudson had someone in yet to fix those infernal squeaking steps?

When John comes blurrily into view, Sherlock can barely register the crumpled expression that means Sherlock has just eaten John's lunch for breakfast. He should probably feel bad about that but he can't even muster the energy for that sort of thing on the best of days.

But then John is looking Sherlock over, obviously registering the squint and the careful hunch of his shoulders, palms firmly cupping his eyebrows. The lines smooth off his brow. “Right on schedule, then?”

Sherlock thinks about nodding, decides it's a bad idea, so he just grunts something vaguely affirmative.

Hateful. It's fucking hateful, being brought low by his transport and betrayed by his brain, his most valuable, most spectacular asset. His head swims dizzily and he can feel the fault line from his base of his skull up over the crown of his head to his eyebrow and around under his right ear. It's like his head has been neatly quartered and one section is getting ready to part company with the rest. He wishes it would just get on with it.

Sherlock hunches in on himself, grabbing fistfuls of his hair in an effort to get at his scalp. John's hand on his shoulder is a surprise, sending a shock through him. Even tactile sensations are ridiculously amplified. Pain scale approaching 7.5 and still rising.

“Do you need anything before I go?” John asks quietly.

“No,” Sherlock replies in a croak. “I think I'll just... go back to bed.” He stands carefully, deliberately, feeling as if he will fly apart if he lets go of the tension that has seized his body. He must get to bed. Bed is his sanctuary, the place he will merely _exist,_ wretched and reduced, to weather the storm.

John is following him, a firm hand never far from his elbow to steer him away from the wall he keeps almost veering into. Being able to crumple into his bed is almost like relief. He curls up instantly on top of the covers and buries his face in the pillows.

John draws the curtains shut. The skree of the rings on the rod makes Sherlock wince, but at least it's darker now. That helps.

Now John is pulling the coverlet up to his shoulders, plumping a pillow under Sherlock's neck and providing another for him to cover his eyes with. Sherlock tries to lie still for a moment, to let John think he's succeeding in making him comfortable. It's not entirely a lie: the pillow over his head muffles the splintering sounds and blocks out what’s left of the light. But Sherlock knows that he will kick the covers off his feet and send the pillows in all directions inside twenty minutes.

A moment later there are two clunks: his half-empty coffee mug and the water glass being set on the bedside table. Sherlock hadn't even noticed John leave to fetch them. So stupid when he's like this.

“I'm off,” John whispers. “Call if you need anything, or text, if you can manage it.”

“I'm fine,” Sherlock snaps, breaking down and clutching the pillow tighter to his skull. “As fine as I can be anyway. Go. You're late already.”

John swears; he hadn't realized. Heavy thumps of his footsteps in the hall, the kitchen, sitting room, kitchen again; Sherlock hears the fridge door opening, a pause. Clearly there is nothing else worth scavenging for lunch because the fridge closes again. Sherlock hears him hesitate. He probably wants to check on Sherlock one last time, to try and do something for him. But there is nothing. Footsteps departing, down the stairs. Outer door shuts with a snik.

Leaving Sherlock in sudden, hateful, boring, agonized silence.

–

When John returns home in late afternoon, he finds Sherlock exactly where he left him. The duvet is twisted and kicked half off the bed, the pillows are no better, and the discarded dressing gown has made it to the floor. The man himself is rocking pitifully, curled over on his knees and mashing his face into the mattress. Breathing labored. Hands clutching at his hair, his forehead, his ears, his neck.

“No better?” John whispers.

He expects a sarcastic response, but he gets only a jerky shake of Sherlock's head and a wrenching cry.

“Hey hey, stop that.” John sits on the edge of the bed and smooths a hand down the taut bow of Sherlock's spine. “You'll make it worse all tensed up like this. Come on.”

Sherlock is barely responsive, but he lets John maneuver him down onto his side and pull his legs out straight. He's not quite squirming, but his legs are kicking at nothing and John understands now how the duvet got so out of sorts. He's still burying his face in the pillows too, as though hiding from the glaring face of the sun even though the room is dim. He's panting – whimpering almost – little unvoiced moans of pain.

John clears his throat, suddenly feeling quite awkward standing there and unable to think of any better way to be of assistance. Migraines are woefully misunderstood by the medical community, but John does know that there is little to be done at this point but wait it out. He turns toward the door, forcing his mind toward the tea and (quiet) telly that will probably accompany him the rest of the evening.

“John.”

The croaking voice stops him in his tracks. “Yeah?”

Sherlock has rolled onto his belly and legs are somewhat stiller. It takes him a few tries to speak again. "Bathroom cupboard. There's a blue bottle. Fetch it?”

The bottle is on the top shelf amongst Sherlock's posh hair products. It seems to be half full of some kind of lotion – it has a pump top – but there's no label. Possibly something of Sherlock's own creation? John gives it a sniff. He can detect lavender and.... menthol? Eucalyptus? Seems safe enough either way.

He brings the bottle back to the bed. Sherlock has managed to turn his face away from the pillows a bit and crack open his left eye. It looks bleary and unfocused and his face is even paler than usual. “My neck,” he says. “Shoulder too. Right here.” With two fingers Sherlock indicates a spot just off center at the back of his neck.

John swallows. He probably should have guessed that this was coming, but he wasn't exactly prepared for the prospect of putting his hands all over a shirtless Sherlock Holmes and his long gorgeous neck. But he squares his shoulders and takes a steadying breath. He is a doctor, dammit. He will be impartial if it kills him.

The lotion is cool and smooth in his hand and the scent tingles in his nose. Sherlock's skin is warm and pliant; the muscles underneath are not. John works the lotion into stiff muscles, quickly finding the knot that feels like thick taut wires running up the back of Sherlock's neck. It crunches and rolls under John's fingers, and Sherlock lets out an explosive exhale of relief that lets John know he's found the right spot.

“God, John... yes, right there, like that.” John takes in a deep breath through his nose and bites down on the rush of heat toward his pelvis. He dutifully rolls his thumb over and over the crunching knot down the back of Sherlock's neck but why does he have to make those _noises?_ God. He sounds obscene, and John should _not_ be thinking this way. That is not what this is about. He swallows and digs his fingers in more firmly, and hopes that Sherlock is too far gone to deduce John's inappropriate thoughts.

“Any better?” he asks after a while.

Sherlock pushes himself up. “Sort of.” His eyes are still squinted closed. “Let me try...”

And suddenly John's arms are full of lanky, shirtless detective as Sherlock leans into John's shoulder, curling into him so he can press his forehead to John's collar. John freezes, but he's spared the awkwardness of trying to figure out what to do with his hands when Sherlock fumbles for them and puts them back on his neck. Right. There was a point to all of this. He adds more lotion and returns to his caretaking, and now when Sherlock gives those great heaving sighs John can feel the heat of his breath through his jumper, can feel that deep baritone rumbling through his chest. It's... shockingly intimate. John tries valiantly to keep his focus on the muscles of Sherlock's neck and shoulders. He can already tell that this angle is better: he can pull Sherlock into the solid weight of his own chest and press on those knots until they loosen, scatter, and break into smaller pieces that he chases all over Sherlock's shoulders with the rolling pressure of his hands. It's almost meditative, doing this for Sherlock. He loses himself in the rhythm, the pressure, in the sensation of touch and the warm body shuddering in his arms. This is probably why it takes him a while to notice that Sherlock's shaking has grown more intense and that there is a damp patch on his shoulder.

“Sherlock – are you crying?” He speaks louder than he intended to and he feels Sherlock cringe. “Sorry.” Whispers again.

“It's – it's fine. When I'm like this... everything is... just too close to the surface.” Sherlock's voice is thick. John feels him swallow, feels his breath hitch as another wave of sobbing wracks his body. John drops the veneer of doctorly concern and wraps his arms around Sherlock's thin shoulders, lets him burrow deeper into the warmth of his embrace until he is almost in John's lap, curled up into an impossibly tight ball. John makes soothing nonsense noises, rocking and patting and maybe just once pressing a kiss into sweet-smelling curls.

Eventually the storm passes. Sherlock is suddenly looking a bit sheepish and sleepy, but much more alert than he had been half an hour before.

“Sorry about that,” he says to John's pectoral.

“Don't be. How are you feeling?”

Sherlock shrugs carefully, rolls his neck. “Better, for the moment. The lotion acts as a muscle relaxant and, as little as I set store by aromatherapy, the lavender scent is... soothing.” He clears his throat. “And the, er... endorphins that accompany the release of tears are certainly helping as well.”

Sherlock hasn't made any indication that he would like to move from where he has curled into John's body, and John sees no particular reason to force him to do so. He just nods and keeps rocking.

“My mother used to do this for me,” Sherlock says, more quietly, some time later. “When I was very young. Primary school. That's her lotion, or the closest approximation I've been able to make. She suffered the same affliction.”

“So you've always had these?” John asks, one hand moving to card through the hair at the base of Sherlock's skull.

“As long as I can remember.” Sherlock's eyes close again, but now it seems more like resting. “They're less frequent now and I have developed an arsenal of tools with which to handle them.” He shudders, curling tighter again and worming one arm to wrap loosely around John's waist. “This... helps.”

John doesn't quite know what to say to that. And the fact that Sherlock's ice-cold fingers have found the gap under his shirt at his lower back and burrowed farther under the fabric than strictly necessary is... not at all conducive to coherent thought. Just trying to warm his hands, he tells himself firmly. God, don't even think of it.

Eventually John's leg starts to protest the odd angle he's sitting at and he shifts a bit. “I think it would be a good idea to get some more painkillers into you, if you think it will come back soon. Have you eaten today?”

Sherlock is already starting to wince again, his eyelids and brow twitching spasmodically. “Not since this morning.”

“Right. Then I'm going to get you something easy to eat and another paracodeine. Ok?”

Sherlock doesn't move, other than to hide his face again.

“Sherlock?”

“You're warm.” It's muttered into the wool of his jumper and John can barely hear it, but his heart melts just a little bit more.

“I'll be right back. Promise. Ok?”

Slowly, Sherlock nods and eases himself out of John's grasp. He seems to be trying to retain as much of his curled position as possible as he bends back to the pillows, flinching at nothing and hiding his right eye with both hands. John hurries to the kitchen and heats up the first easy thing he can find – beans on toast – and fishes the painkillers out of his satchel.

Sherlock is completely still when John returns, balancing the bottle of pills on top of the plate in one hand a glass of water in the other. At first he thinks Sherlock might be asleep, but then his left eye opens to glare balefully at the plate.

“I feel ill,” he says.

“But you can't have pills on an empty stomach. Doctor's orders.”

Sherlock pulls a face, but pushes himself into a hunched sitting position, legs crossed on the bed. John smiles and hands him the water first. Three careful sips, and he sets it back down on the bedside table. “Now the toast.”

It's the smallest, least enthusiastic bite of toast John has ever seen a man take, but he eats it. Even if he looks as if he's been fed wet cat food and swoons dramatically back on the pillows the moment he's swallowed. “Come on Sherlock, you can do better than that.”

“Can't.”

“Yes you can.”

“Can't make me.” And then Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting detective, reverts entirely to the schoolyard and pokes his tongue at John.

“Put that tongue back in your face or I'll find something else you can do with it!”

The words are out before John can stop them. He feels his face flush and Sherlock rouses from his pained strop long enough to raise an eyebrow at him.

“I mean – I meant the toast, not...” In desperation John shoves a bite of toast in his own mouth. Better than his foot, he supposes.

“I thought that was for me?” Sherlock teases.

“Well you weren't eating it.” John steals another bite.

Eventually they manage to get the rest of the toast into Sherlock's belly, though at some point he starts flicking off the beans and eating them separately. They manage this by compromise: Sherlock will eat toast if John lets him lay on his chest. John is leaning against the headboard and pillows now; it's easier on his leg and his back. When only a corner of crust and a small pile of neglected beans remains, John consents to let Sherlock have the painkillers.

A long while later, long after John thought Sherlock had drifted into something like sleep, Sherlock speaks. “I know, John.”

“Hmm?” John might have dozed off a bit himself.

“I know how you feel... how you think about me sometimes.”

That low voice rumbling straight into John's sternum, speaking his fondest desire and his worst fear, sends his heart to a gallop. And right under Sherlock's ear, too. If he'd needed confirmation...

“Well. Um. That's.” John swallows.

“It's fine,” Sherlock says. “Really. I...” He's quiet again for a long while, and maybe this time he has fallen out of this surreal conversation and into sleep, but then, “I cannot say the feeling isn't mutual.”

John lets out a rushed exhale. “Is this because I'm letting you kip on my chest just now?”

“Hmmm. No. Before.”

He's so sweet in this moment. Vulnerable and warm and miles from the cool front he puts up for everyone else in the world to see. John doesn't envy him the pain but he's grateful for the openness he seems to have stumbled into. He tightens his arms around Sherlock, allowing himself to bury his nose in his hair and inhale, to kiss there without reservation. 

He feels Sherlock turn his head and press his nose into John's chest, breathing in and out slowly. He’s nuzzling. And he’s kissing John’s chest through his thin T-shirt – the jumper was overwarm and getting in the way – and that is simply astonishing. More astonishing is when Sherlock shifts to raise his head and John’s breath catches in a gasp to see Sherlock’s face so close to his own. He can count his eyelashes, or could if he were so inclined. He can trace the fine lines around his eyes and nose, could bend forward just a bit and –

“May I kiss you?” Sherlock asks and lord but that _voice…_

John nods and breathes a shaky “yeah” and he can smell Sherlock’s breath, feel it on his cheeks and _god._  His lips are just as soft as they look. He is kissing. Being kissed by. Sherlock Holmes. And that is astounding. A muffled sigh escapes him and he cups the back of Sherlock’s head with one hand, angling their mouths together. Sherlock sighs too, and it sounds like everything John has ever wanted. His heart is skipping wildly to the tune of _yes yes YES FINALLY_ thrumming through him. His arms ache from holding Sherlock so tightly. He wants to roll him over and run his hands everywhere, all over the long limbs and miles of skin he has been staring at for months without being able to touch –

But Sherlock is pulling back with a gasp and a wince, hiding in John’s collar again. For a moment John had forgotten. Now his hands turn tender to rub soothing circles into Sherlock’s scalp.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock groans. “Later, we can –”

“Shhhh, Sherlock. It’s fine. That was – christ that was lovely. And I plan to do it properly once you’re feeling better. That is, um… if you want to.”

“Don’t be absurd. Of course I do.”

John huffs a little laugh and nuzzles back into Sherlock’s hair, breathing in blissfully. They'll have to talk about this later of course, if they're ever going to get anything off the ground except confusion. But not yet. Not right now. For now it's enough to savor the anticipation, the door just open enough to let in a hopeful breeze.

“John?”

“Hmmm?”

“Would you read to me?”

There is a slimmish paperback on the nightstand just within arm's reach. Its pages are worn, yellow, the corners tattered and soft. Clearly a favorite of many years. When John sees the title he cannot help but grin. He opens it up to the first chapter and begins.

“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit...”

_~Fin~_

**Author's Note:**

> A note on medication: I originally wrote this fic to include hydrocodone, which I have occasionally taken for migraines, but yttrium39 told me that hydrocodone is rare in the UK, so I did a bit of research. Paracetamol-codeine blend seemed like the right sort of thing, but I don’t have any personal experience with what doctors in the UK might actually prescribe. (Incidentally, if anyone is wondering why I didn't have John give Sherlock a triptan of some sort, it’s because I've had bad reactions to triptans and didn't want to deal with explaining them so I went with an all-purpose painkiller.)


End file.
